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Are the Interests of Women Included in Times of Crisis?

A comparative study of the substantive representation of women during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Southern

African Region

Janna Cederquist

Supervisor: Pär Zetterberg Autumn 2020

Department of Government Uppsala University

Word count: 18 234

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Abstract

This study set out to answer how and to what extent the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are addressed in parliamentary debates in the Southern African regional context. As both the proportion of women in parliament and the level of democracy have been established by previous research as important conditions for women to be able to act for women as a group, four countries with varying combinations of these factors are examined. By conducting both a quantitative and a qualitative text analysis on Hansards from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia, the study analyses the extent to which the gendered effects of the pandemic are addressed and how they are addressed respectively. The results reveal that a combination of a high proportion of women in parliament and a high degree of democracy is the most favourable condition for enabling the substantive representation of women. A democracy with a low proportion of women in parliament is shown to be more allowing for the substantive representation of women than an electoral autocracy with a high proportion of women in parliament. Moreover, the qualitative frame analysis sheds light on the different issues which are in focus on the framing of the gendered effects of the pandemic in different parliaments depending on their level of democracy. Particularly, the issue of gender-based violence in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic is found to have reached the political agenda in the democratic cases, whereas MPs in the less democratic parliaments are more likely to feminize their cause by focusing more on traditionally feminine policy issues such as the health effects of women within the context of the pandemic.

Keywords: Representation, substantive representation, descriptive representation, democracy,

electoral autocracy, Southern Africa, gender, female political representation, COVID-19,

pandemic.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction ... 3

1.1 Purpose and Research Question ... 5

1.2 Disposition ... 6

Chapter 2: Theory and Previous Research ... 6

2.1 Politics of Ideas versus Politics of Presence ... 7

2.2 The Substantive Representation of Women ... 8

2.3 Critical Mass Theory ... 9

2.4 Critical Act Theory ... 10

2.5 Democracy and the Substantive Representation of Women ... 12

2.6 Descriptive Democracy Dynamic ... 13

2.7 Framing Gender and COVID-19 ... 14

Chapter 3: Data and Methods ... 17

3.1 Research Design ... 17

3.2 Material ... 20

3.3 Methods... 21

3.3.1 Quantitative text analysis ... 22

3.3.2 Frame analysis ... 24

3.4 Indicators ... 26

Chapter 4: Results ... 29

4.1 Quantitative Text Analysis ... 29

4.2 Frame Analysis ... 31

4.2.1 The Gender-Based Violence Issue ... 31

4.2.2 The Economic Effects Issue ... 35

4.2.3 The Health Effects Issue ... 37

4.2.4 Strategic versus Practical Gender Needs ... 39

Chapter 5: Discussion ... 40

Chapter 6: Conclusion ... 44

References ... 47

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Since the COVID-19 pandemic entered our consciousness at the end of 2019, the virus and its catastrophic consequences have turned the world upside down. Although the immediate threat of the pandemic is directed towards public health, the consequences have spilled over into the economic and social sector, as well as into politics. Similarly to other crises, the indirect consequences of the pandemic have particularly affected already disadvantaged groups, such as women and girls. For example, women are in a higher risk of losing their income because they to a larger extent work within the informal sector, and problems such as gender-based violence and child marriages have increased during lockdown regulations (UN Women 2020).

These disproportionate consequences of the pandemic for women and girls, in this paper referred to as gendered effects

1, risk aggravating already existing gender inequalities if not

acknowledged and acted upon politically. This is something the UN, as well as women’s rights organizations have advocated for national governments to address. However, for the gendered effects of the pandemic to be considered in crisis response, someone has to represent the interests of women by setting these issues on the political agenda.

Theories on women’s political representation postulate that women are better equipped and have greater motivation than men to represent women as a group (Mansbridge 1999;

Phillips 1995). Yet, women hold as little as 24,6 % of the parliamentary seats worldwide (IPU 2019). This underrepresentation in decision-making positions raises questions of whether the interest of women in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic are being adequately represented in politics, i.e., whether the substantive representation of women is enabled under these conditions. The substantive representation of women can be seen either as a process, in which women representatives transform the political agenda or as an outcome, where women manage to pass bills relating to women’s interests. The former, which will be in focus for this study, refers to actions such as introducing issues of particular interest to women during parliamentary debates (Franceschet and Piscopo 2008, 395).

Most studies on the political representation of women have focused on the relationship between the number of women in parliament, the descriptive representation of women (DRW), and their will and ability to act for the interests of women, the substantive representation of

women (SRW) (Clayton, Josefsson and Wang 2017, 278). The idea of a link between the two

1Although the concept of gender refers to “the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed” (WHO 2020), this study will define gendered effects as the disproportionate effects of the pandemic on women and girls. Any specific effect on men or boys as a group will not be included in the analysis.

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forms of representation is based on theoretical arguments claiming that women introduce other backgrounds and experiences into politics and thus become better suited to represent women as a group (Mansbridge 1999; Phillips 1995). A large body of empirical work gives support to these arguments by finding that female legislators report a greater interest to act for women (Dodson 2006; Reingold 2000) and introduce and support bills addressing gender in/equality to a larger extent than their male counterparts (Bratton and Ray 2002; Childs 2004; Taylor- Robinson and Heath 2003; Thomas 1994).

Many of these studies highlight that the number of women is important, yet not a necessary condition to enable women’s interests to be represented. During the last decades, the focus on women representatives as the main driver for change has given way to an increased focus on institutional factors affecting the representation of women’s interests, such as norms and practices within the parliaments (Bratton 2005; Celis and Childs 2008). Even with a high proportion of women in parliament, political institutions are embedded in patriarchal structures which may constrain women’s ability to act for women (Childs and Krook 2006, 520).

One factor affecting norms and practices in parliament is the characteristics of different types of regimes. A growing body of research has payed attention to the role of democracy for the substantive representation of women (e.g., Clayton, Josefsson and Wang 2017; Forman- Rabinovici and Sommer 2019). In semi- or non-democracies, female parliamentarians tend to be constrained by the party agenda and may not have the capacity to act for women in the same manner as in democracies (Longman 2006). The regime type also affects the strategies and priorities of women rights advocates (Htun and Weldon 2010, 211). Where there is an opportunity for organizing across parties and pressure from grassroots women organizations, SRW is more likely to be enabled (Gouws 2011, 74; Bauer 2012, 378).

The aim of this study is to contribute cumulatively to this field of research by addressing two gaps in the existing literature. Firstly, although the substantive representation of women has been extensively studied within political science, most studies have been carried out in Western democracies (e.g., Carroll 2001; Chaney 2016; Grey 2006) and has focused either on the relationship between the descriptive and the substantive representation of women or the importance of types of regimes for SRW. This gap raises questions of whether previous results hold for non-Western, less democratic contexts. It also provides an opportunity for incorporating theories of descriptive representation of women and democracy as factors affecting SRW.

Secondly, previous studies on gender and COVID-19 have amongst other issues focused

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pandemic has affected the framing of childcare (Wallace and Goodyear-Grant 2020), and the different attitudes between men and women towards COVID-19 (Brooks and Saad 2020).

These are only a few examples of the many questions one could ask when it comes to gender and COVID-19. Yet, to my knowledge, there has been no scholarly attention to the substantive representation of women in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this study will compare countries with different combinations of proportion of women in parliament and degree of democracy to explore how and to what extent the Members of Parliament (MPs) represent the interests of women in parliamentary debates during the COVID-19 crisis.

1.1 Purpose and Research Question

The overarching aim of this study is to cumulatively contribute to the research field of the substantive representation of women, as well as the emerging field of research on gender and COVID-19, by examining the representation of women’s interests in four Southern African parliaments. More specifically, the study will focus on the gendered effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and compare how and to what extent those aspects are addressed in plenary debates between March and August 2020. The study will apply a comparative lens by examining South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia, which have different combinations of democracy and proportion of women in parliament. In this way, research on the classic relationship between DRW and SRW will be integrated with the body of research on the relationship between regime type and SRW.

The study will apply deductive reasoning with inductive elements, dividing the to what extent- and how-part of the purpose into two different methods. The extent to which the gendered aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic are addressed in each country will be examined by conducting a quantitative text analysis on transcripts from the parliamentary debates. How the issues are addressed will be examined by frame analysis of the same text material. In this way, the study will be able to feed into the growing discussion among political science researchers on gender and COVID-19 (e.g., Aldrich and Lotito 2020; Bauer, Kim and Kweon 2020; Smith 2020). To reach this aim, the paper will be guided by the following research question:

How and to what extent are the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic addressed in

parliaments with a varying degree of democracy and proportion of women in parliament?

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1.2 Disposition

The study is divided into six chapters. Following the introduction, the second chapter will describe the theories and previous research, which will form the theoretical framework by attending to theories of the critical mass, critical acts, democracy and framing. The third chapter will guide the reader through the data and methods used for this study. The fourth chapter will present the results for the quantitative and qualitative analysis respectively, which then will be further developed on in the fifth chapter, the discussion. Finally, chapter six will be wrapping up the study by providing a clear answer to the research question and propose suggestions for future research.

Chapter 2: Theory and Previous Research

In this chapter, previous research and theoretical vantage points will be outlined in order to piece together the analytical framework and reach certain expectations. The critical mass

theory, critical acts theory and theory on democracy and women’s political representation will

be expanded on in the quantitative part of the study. Even though each of these theories will provide expectations on the empirical observations, bridging them together will give a more complete framework for understanding the dynamic between DRW and democracy. In the qualitative part of the study, theories of framing, as well as arguments for why we should expect a difference in framing between the parliaments will be used to reach certain expectations.

When it comes to the relationship between theory, data and methods, this study will apply deductive reasoning with some inductive elements when it comes to the frame analysis. The logic behind deduction is that it begins in theory and proceeds through empirics to arrive at an observed result, which either supports the theory or falsifies it (Timmermans and Tavory 2012, 170). Induction, on the other hand, starts with the empirical observations and then constructs reasons from existing theories (ibid., 171). The deductive approach will be used throughout the process when studying the first part of the research question, to what extent the gendered aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic are addressed in the different parliaments. Concerning the second part of the research question, how the gendered aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic are addressed, expectations on the difference in framing will be deductively drawn from existing theories. However, the specific frames will be developed inductively based on what we will find in the material.

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2.1 Politics of Ideas versus Politics of Presence

This section will describe the theories of politics of ideas and politics of presence, which can be viewed as the theoretical background from which the majority of research on the political representation of women has been developed.

The idea of representation stems from the understanding of liberal democracy, within which difference is considered a matter of ideas, and where representation is regarded more or less important depending on how adequately it mirrors citizens interests and opinions. Within this view, problems of political exclusion are attributed to the electoral system, which can overrepresent certain interests and underrepresent others, or in terms of people’s access to political participation (Phillips 1995, 1). The notion of people wishing to be represented by representatives whose ideas we share is commonly referred to as the politics of ideas. Within this idea, representation is seen as a matter of judgement and debate, and political loyalties are formed around politics instead of people (ibid., 2).

First formulated by Hanna Pitkin (1967), the four types of representation are: (1) formal, when a representative is legally empowered to act for others, (2) descriptive, when the representative has similar characteristics as the group they stand for, (3) symbolic, when the group feel represented, and (4) substantive, when the representatives seek to advance a group’s preferences and interests. In Pitkin’s preferred alternative, the activities rather than the characteristics of the representative are important, and it is what happens after the action instead of before that matters. Representation is defined as “acting in the interests of the represented, in a manner responsive to them” (Pitkin 1967). This means that fair representation cannot be guaranteed in advance. Rather, it is achieved in a continuous process, which depends on the level of responsiveness to the electorate (Phillips 1995, 4).

While Pitkin argued that ideas are more important than the person representing them, i.e., that descriptive representation has limited effect, more recent scholars have argued the opposite (Childs and Lovenduski 2013, 490). That the characteristics of the representative matters and will have a substantial effect on political decision-making stems from Phillips’s notion about the politics of presence. Within this field of research, both the messenger and the message are assessed as important and female politicians are believed to act for women as a group once elected.

Arguments for changing the underrepresentation of women in politics and other decision-

making bodies can be divided into four categories. The first is the role model argument, where

more women in politics are argued to raise women's self-esteem, encourage others to follow

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their example and disentangle deep rooted expectations about gender roles (Phillips 1995, 63).

The second is the justice argument, stating that it is simply unfair for men to dominate political representation (ibid., 64). The third is the argument of women having different interests than men, which would be overlooked without a substantial number of women in parliament. (ibid., 66). The fourth is the argument of women having a different way of doing politics, which means that their presence is argued to improve the quality of politics in general (ibid., 64).

These arguments and the idea of the politics of presence gendered the representation debate and provided insights into the importance of descriptive representation to enable the substantive representation of underrepresented groups (ibid., 5).

2.2 The Substantive Representation of Women

The general expectation of women to act for women in political debates and policymaking is not without its challenges. Female politicians are stuck between two conflicting expectations.

They have to prove they are equal to male politicians, along with bearing the expectation of making a difference for women once elected (Dahlerup 1988, 279). Another problem is the view of women representatives only representing women’s interests or feminist interests as women by no means are a homogenous group. Women in national parliaments are a small proportion of the total female population and have no official duty to represent women instead of promoting their own political agenda (Weldon 2011, 18).

Nonetheless, one could argue that some issues affect women as a group. These injustices harm all women in some way regardless of differences in class, ethnicity, sexuality or ableness.

They are built on patriarchal norms which reinforce men as the standard and women as the subordinate. The consequences of these norms include violence, sexual assault, harassment, public exclusion, stereotyping, marginalization, and the denial of citizenship rights. Although these harms are inflicted on all women, they do not necessarily affect all women in the same way or to the same degree. Being a woman, alone or in combination with other social positions, is what triggers discriminatory treatment (Htun and Weldon 2010, 209).

In light of this, Beckwith suggests defining women’s interests by looking at claims made by women organisations (Beckwith 2011, 428). Because women organisations have advocated for governments to include a gender perspective in the response to the pandemic, the gendered effects of COVID-19 can be defined as being of particular interest for women.

Furthermore, recent research on women’s political representation has acknowledged that

the substantive representation occurs in a variety of settings and can be enabled by different

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actors with different interests. The focus has shifted from when women make a difference to how they make a difference (Gwiazda 2019, 264). This study will define the substantive representation of women in line with Franceschet, Krook, and Piscopo, who define SRW as asking “whether women seek and are able to promote women’s issues once they are elected to political office […] [and] whether women pursue alternative political objectives to those of men” (2012, 8). In a recent study, Clayton et al. (2019) answers the first part of this question.

They find that women in African parliaments share gender specific interests with their co- gender citizens and indeed seek to promote women’s issues once they are elected to political office (Clayton et al. 2019, 73). Based on this, one may assume that female political actors, in general want to address issues of particular concern to women and move on to the next part of the question - whether women are able to promote women’s issues in parliaments. As mentioned in the introduction, the substantive representation will in this study be viewed as a process, where women are seen as agents for change, rather than as outcomes in terms of women-friendly bills being passed (Franceschet and Piscopo 2008).

Although the most common way to measure SRW is by examining the passing of bills favourable to women, “the introduction of women’s issues during parliamentary debates”

(Celis 2009, 97) is suggested to be a representative action in itself. Additionally, it is an important preparatory stage in the process of legislation and advocating for women’s perspectives in debates are crucial in making certain subjects or positions politically acceptable (ibid.). Parliaments are both a problem-solving body and a performative arena for MPs to stand up for or justify certain positions (Demirsu 2017, 144). Thus, this paper will operationalize the substantive representation of women as to whether women’s interests in relation to the COVID- 19 pandemic are represented in the parliamentary debates.

2.3 Critical Mass Theory

A major part of the scholarly debate on SRW has centred around whether women must be a critical mass to be able to act for women. Formulated by Dahlerup (1988), the argument of the critical mass theory is that it is unrealistic to expect significant changes until the representation of women reaches a certain proportion. The threshold of 30 % has been argued to be required for women to be able to make a difference in legislative bodies (Dahlerup 1988, 275f).

However, the idea of a particular turning point has been revised. Instead, Dahlerup suggests

more specific, empirically based studies about the importance of the size of the

underrepresented under different conditions (2006, 519).

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Although it is fair to assume a magical number of women does not guarantee women’s interests to be represented, the proportion of women can still be argued to be important. Clayton et al. find both citizens and MPs priorities to differ between men and women, which indicates we should expect issues of particular concern to women to be addressed to a larger extent when the share of women in parliament is larger (Clayton et al. 2019). Women are also more prone than men to address women’s issues and policy areas which have a disproportionate effect on women (Forman-Rabinovici and Sommer 2019, 1515). With more elected women MPs, the opportunities for women to take part in informal discussions and committees increases (Clayton and Zetterberg 2018, 920). When the number of women increases, so does the heterogeneity of views being represented (Alidou 2013; Hughes 2011). Moreover, a high proportion of women can influence men’s behaviour in a more feminist direction, as well as make it easier to form political alliances. The opposite is true when numbers of women are small as women MPs might find it difficult to gather the diverse priorities of women citizens and could face restrictions imposed by acting in male dominated institutions (Clayton et al.

2019). Additionally, scholars have found legislatures with high proportions of women to introduce and pass more bills on women’s issues than women representatives in legislatures where the proportion of women is small (Saint-Germain 1989; Thomas 1994).

Given this, the study expects women MPs as a group to share the same biological experiences, face the same socially constructed expectations about gender roles, and experience forms of discrimination. Because of these experiences, women MPs should have a stronger incentive than men to actively represent women’s interests in the parliaments (Clayton, Josefsson and Wang 2017, 281). Hence, in line with the rethinking of the critical mass theory, this paper will argue descriptive representation to be one of the key conditions for women’s interests to be articulated in parliament.

Based on these arguments, the first hypothesis is formulated as follows:

H1a: The gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will be addressed to a larger extent in countries with a high proportion of women in parliament

2.4 Critical Act Theory

In contrast to advocates for the critical mass, Childs and Krook argue there is no universal

relationship between the number of women in political office and SRW (Childs and Krook

2006, 523). A few women under the right conditions might be able to make a substantial

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difference, and a large proportion of women would not necessarily want to change the agenda during certain times or circumstances (ibid., 520). Moreover, a smaller proportion of women might be seen as less of a threat to a regime, enabling them to be more effective and forward their claims without any backlash among male legislators (Heath, Schwindt-Bayer and Taylor- Robinson 2005, 233). This is empirically confirmed by

Bratton, who finds women in legislatures with little gender balance to be more successful than women in more gender- balanced settings (Bratton 2005, 121). A rise in the overall number of women can result in the

election of an increasingly more diverse group who may or may not be interested in pursuing women’s issues, either because their priorities lie elsewhere, or because they believe other female legislators will continue to lobby on behalf of women (Carroll 2001). Increased female

presence in national assemblies has also been found to correlate with a rise in overall scepticism towards feminist agendas (Grey 2006, 500). Furthermore, a rapid increase of women in national

parliaments might come at the expense of women’s movements. That is, when women previously active in women’s movements are elected to politics, they might leave women movements and organizations with less capable and experienced leaders (Franceschet, Krook and Piscopo 2012, 12).

Regardless of whether the proportion of women in parliament is small or large, Dahlerup (2006) suggests that critical actors engaged in critical acts need to be present for women’s interests to be represented. Childs and Krook (2006) describe critical actors as those who initiate policy proposals on their own and encourage others to take steps to promote policies for women. Critical actors do not necessarily have to be women, individual men could advance women’s policy concerns as well. Rather, what characterizes critical actors is their relatively low threshold for political action and that they are more motivated than other representatives to work for women’s rights. Even though they may act alone, they may also encourage others to act and therefore promote policy change.

To conclude, although numbers are important, one cannot expect an automatic change once women reach a certain proportion of seats in the legislatures. Accordingly, a high proportion of women in parliament may enhance the opportunity for critical acts but could also dampen their effect (Childs and Krook 2006, 528). In light of this, the alternative hypothesis is formulated as follows:

H1b: There will be no relationship between high proportion of women in parliament and the

extent to which the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are addressed

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2.5 Democracy and the Substantive Representation of Women

Apart from the debate on critical mass versus critical acts, the substantive representation of women has proven to be affected by the institutional and political setting (Tripp 2005;

Beckwith 2011). In particular, the relationship between democracy and gender equality has been examined by researchers. Although studies on the political representation of women and regime type have been largely limited to studies of descriptive representation (Forman- Rabinovici and Sommer 2019, 1516), some scholars have found democratic states to be more likely to support women’s rights compared with other types of political regimes (Beer 2009).

This is based on the argument that parliaments in authoritarian states are elected non- competitively, have little to no decision-making powers and are mainly used as a tool for the executive to formally authorize regime decisions (Stockemer 2018, 222). Hence, women MPs in electoral autocracies cannot influence policy as much as in democracies (2018, 222).

Nevertheless, elite women and other progressive reformers, so called critical actors, may have access to power under autocratic regimes, which can lead to advances in women’s rights under less democratic governments as well (Htun and Weldon 2010, 213). Feminists in these contexts often find other strategies and push for policies that are less costly (ibid., 211).

Supporting this view, some researchers have found women to exercise equal substantive representation in semi- and non-democracies as in democracies (Forman-Rabinovici and Sommer 2019, 1513). One reason might be the complex democratization process, which at the same time as it empowers women’s groups, strengthens religious institutions that are reluctant to change (Htun and Weldon 2010, 212).

In contrast to these arguments, this paper will propose democracy to be an important

condition for women to be able to act for women. Even though democracy does not necessarily

imply protection of human rights, a democratic system with a vibrant civil society, free and

fair elections, and widespread political freedoms, by definition, provides citizens with equal

rights. This should in theory assure the fair representation of the different groups of the

population, including women. Furthermore, democratic countries can be assumed to be more

likely to listen to demands expressed by female voters and women organizations, because the

cost of denying their requests are higher in terms of the risk of not becoming re-elected

(Stockemer 2011, 695).

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This assumption is confirmed by empirical studies. Clayton et al. find the substantive representation of women in terms of gendered issue prioritization congruence

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to be stronger when legislative institutions do not inflict constraints and allow for open and competitive elections (Clayton et al. 2019, 93). In non- or semi-democracies, MPs are expected to have less motivation to prioritize issues that are important for citizens because they are not accountable to the population in the same manner. The dominant party in authoritarian or semi-authoritarian states often constrain the abilities for social movements and civil organisations to act (Fletcher and Star 2018, 58). Scholars have emphasised the value of national women caucuses as a logical entrance for actors promoting women’s rights. However, in non-democracies, the power of these agencies has been questioned (Goetz and Jenkins 2018, 729). This pattern might be reinforced when women are underrepresented in opposition parties, which tends to be the case in many African parliaments (Clayton et. al 2019, 88). Overall, previous work has found the implementation of gender quotas and the increase of women MPs to have done little to enable SRW in authoritarian countries (Bauer 2012, 378).

Against this background, this paper argues that a high level of political freedom allows women rights groups to mobilize around gender specific interests, thereby fostering the responsiveness of the political representatives to women’s rights issues. This leads to the expectation that the ability for women to articulate their interests in parliamentary debates should be stronger in democratic settings than in semi- or non-democratic settings. Hence, the second hypothesis is formulated as follows:

H2: The gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will be addressed to a larger extent in democratic countries

2.6 Descriptive Democracy Dynamic

So far, the study has established both the descriptive representation of women and the degree of democracy to be important factors affecting the substantive representation of women. By bringing the theories outlined above together, certain expectations can be formulated.

This study will argue that it is reasonable to expect a dynamic between the DRW and the degree of democracy affecting SRW. In line with this expectation, a democratic country with a high proportion of women in parliament should be the most likely to represent women’s

2 Gendered issue prioritization congruence refers to when women/men MPs and women/men citizens list the same political issues as priorities

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interests in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast, a semi- or non-democracy with a low proportion of women in parliament should be the least likely to represent women’s interests in parliamentary debates.

However, the question is what to expect when it comes to a comparison between a democracy with a low descriptive representation of women and a non-democracy with a high descriptive representation of women. As the theory of critical mass has given way to the theory of critical acts and because aspects such as a free civil society and party competition have been established as crucial conditions for SRW, the expectation will be that the democracy with a low descriptive representation of women is more likely to enable SRW than a non-democracy with a high proportion of women in parliament. As argued by Tripp, when governments increase women’s numerical representation within a democratic framework it can facilitate gender equality and social justice. In a less democratic setting, the utility of more women in parliament is diminished (Tripp 2005, 60). This leads to the expectation that democracies, despite having low numbers of women in parliament, are more likely than non- or semi- democracies with high numbers of women in parliament to enable SRW in terms of addressing the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the third hypothesis is formulated as follows:

H3: A democracy with a low descriptive representation of women will represent the gendered effects of the pandemic to a larger extent than a non-democracy with a high descriptive representation of women

2.7 Framing Gender and COVID-19

So far, the study has presented theories and expectations related to the first part of the research question, to what extent the gendered effects of the pandemic will be addressed in parliament.

However, the question remains what it means to apply a gender perspective to the COVID-19

pandemic. Gender equality is a contested idea and has been widely debated within feminist

theory. Political actors, actors from civil society and researchers have asked questions related

to what gender equality is and should be. The concept can be seen as an empty box, taking a

variety of meanings depending on the political context and visions represented within a debate

(Verloo and Lombardo 2007, 22). Therefore, there are incentives to move beyond the

examination of the extent to which women’s interests are represented within the COVID-19

debate and explore how these issues are talked about. In other words, how these issues are

framed.

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In line with Rein and Schön, this study defines framing as “a way of selecting, organizing, interpreting, and making sense of a complex reality so as to provide guideposts for knowing, analysing, persuading, and acting”, and as “a perspective from which an amorphous, ill-defined problematic situation can be made sense of and acted upon” (Rein and Schön 1991, 263). The power of frames evolves from the way they make individuals focus on certain aspects of the social reality while neglecting others, thereby filtering our understanding of the world (Kuypers 2009, 181). How actors frame issues create different impressions of what the problem of gender inequality is (Bacchi and Eveline 2010, 112). Thus, investigating how MPs address the gendered effects of the pandemic in parliamentary debates directs attention to how representations of problems reinforce or challenge hierarchical power relations (ibid., 115).

When women’s needs are addressed without challenging the norms of male domination, or when there is a gender-neutral approach, it means the issue is defined from within the male norm and perspective, which does little to consider the impact of a solution on the oppressed group (Fletcher and Star 2018, 54). Also, a stronger feminist narrative has been shown to result in more comprehensive policies on women’s rights (Htun and Weldon 2013, 235f). Hence, applying a gender perspective to the COVID-19 debate can be done at different levels, depending on whether the MPs problematize gender structures or if they address women’s immediate needs within these structures.

To understand this difference, the distinction between strategic and practical gender needs becomes useful. A critical point in the debate regarding how to define gender equality and women’s interests has been whether to highlight practical or strategic interests (Celis et al.

2014, 154). Strategic gender needs are formulated from the assessment of women’s

subordination to men, developed out of gender interests concerned with an alternative

organization of society in terms of the structure of relationships between women and men

(Molyneux 1985, 232f). Practical gender needs, “do not generally entail a strategic goal such

as women’s emancipation or gender equality […] nor do they challenge the prevailing forms

of subordination even though they arise directly out of them” (Molyneux 1985, 233). Rather,

they derive from the concrete reality experienced by women, such as their position within the

sexual division of labour. Thereby, they are formulated based on gender interests for human

survival, usually addressed as a response to an immediate perceived necessity identified by

women in a specific context (ibid.). In light of this, the study will specifically examine how

issues are addressed in the parliament based on whether they target women’s practical or

strategic gender needs.

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Another question is what to expect when it comes to differences in framing between parliaments with different combinations of DRW and democracy. In relation to regime type, Htun and Weldon argue that an effective state is required for gender equality to be achieved.

The state has to be able to intervene in society, in the workplace and the family to protect women from violence and discrimination and to promote the value of their work and issues.

The condition of state effectiveness is argued to be even more important for gender than for other policy areas because equality measures require fundamental changes in norms and interests. In democratic countries where institutions tend to be more effective, the government can implement laws and overcome societal resistance, whereas in settings without effective institutions, even a strong political commitment to gender equality can struggle to reach change. This makes actors promoting women’s interests less prone to advocate for their cause in contexts where implementation seems unlikely (Htun and Weldon 2010, 211). Additionally, regimes in less democratic contexts might encourage women’s rights advocates to address traditionally feminine issues. This is because co-opted leaders of women’s groups can be useful for the regime in trying to gain legitimacy. In such regimes, the strategy of actors acting for women depends on them being perceived as a threat to the state or not. This could spill over into the political sphere and lead to MPs advocating for women’s rights to feminize their cause by focusing on traditionally feminine issues such as health, childcare, or education (Forman- Rabinovici and Sommer 2019, 1518). Thus, we expect a difference in framing the gendered effects of the pandemic between democracies and non-democracies.

Regarding expectations on the difference in framing between parliaments with a high and a low proportion of women in parliament, theories are less clear of what to expect. Previous research has shown support for the idea that more women in parliament will generate advancement of certain positions and agendas, and that women MPs address different issues than their male colleagues, such as women’s rights, health, family, and social issues (Forman- Rabinovici and Sommer 2019, 1515). Still, whether MPs frame these issues differently depending on the proportion of women in parliament has not yet been established. Hence, one can expect a difference in the framing of issues between parliaments depending on regime type, but not depending on the proportion of women in parliament. Against this background, the fourth hypothesis is formulated as follows:

H4: MPs in semi- or non-democracies will frame the gendered effects of COVID-19 differently

than MPs in democracies by addressing traditionally feminine issues perceived as less

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Chapter 3: Data and Methods

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the methodological choices made in this study. The research design, the selection of countries and policy area, as well as the choice of combining quantitative and qualitative text analysis will be discussed in further detail, along with a discussion of the potential limitations of the study.

3.1 Research Design

The research design of this study is to apply a comparative perspective on a few, strategically selected cases. Comparative analysis allows us to form a comprehensive idea of the variety of perceptions about the gendered effects of COVID-19 in different parliaments. The idea is not to single out the best national practice, rather to shed light on the potential differences in the substantive representation of women in contexts with different features.

The aim with the country selection was to find cases with different combinations of descriptive representation of women in parliament and degree of democracy. However, a potential limitation when comparing countries are the potential confounding variables influencing the dependent variable (SRW), which we could fail to account for in the analysis.

It is impossible to know all aspects that may influence the articulation of women’s interests in parliament, as they are shaped by both formal and informal institutions which may have their roots in cultural or historical practices the researcher has limited access to. This requires a careful interpretation of the results when aiming to make generalizations.

To partially overcome this challenge, the aim was to select countries as similar as possible, except in terms of the independent variables of interest. South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia share the geographical position being neighbouring countries all situated in southern Africa. They are part of the regional organization Southern African Development Community (SADC), previous English colonies, and have had liberation movements struggling for independence. In addition, they have had women movements, although with varying success, advocating for the inclusion of women during their democratization processes, and all have women caucuses in their parliaments. South Africa and Botswana use party quotas, Zimbabwe uses a reserved seat quota and Zambia has no gender quota (International IDEA 2020).

A potential problem for the validity of the study is that South Africa and Botswana are

classified by the World Bank as upper-middle-income countries, while Zimbabwe and Zambia

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are classified as lower-middle-income countries (World Bank 2019). This division is similar to our distinction of the countries as democracies and electoral autocracies (see figure 1), which means socioeconomic development instead of democracy might be the variable affecting the potential difference between the countries. Still, previous studies of women’s political representation have not found the level of economic development to be an important condition for SRW. Rather, economic development has been theorized to correlate with democracy (Diamond 1992; Lipset 1994). Because a confounding variable is categorized as a variable that correlates with both the independent and dependent variable, and economic development according to previous research do not affect the substantive representation of women, there should be little reason to believe that economic development is a confounding variable in this case.

When it comes to the independent variables, the level of democracy and proportion of women in parliament, the selected countries differ. South Africa and Botswana are both defined as democracies, categorized as “Free” according to Freedom House (Freedom House 2019).

However, South Africa has a share of 42,7 % women in parliament, whereas the share of

women in the parliament of Botswana is 9,5 % (IPU 2019). Zimbabwe and Zambia are defined

as electoral autocracies (V-dem 2020), categorized as “Partly Free” by Freedom House

(Freedom House 2019). Zimbabwe has a 31,9 % share of women in parliament, whereas

Zambia has 18 %. This study will define electoral autocracies in line with Schedler, who

describe them as: “Electoral authoritarian regimes practice authoritarianism behind the

institutional facades of representative democracy. They hold regular multiparty elections at the

national level, yet violate liberal–democratic minimum standards in systematic and profound

ways” (Schedler 2013, 1). Electoral autocracies have become the most common type of non-

democratic regime in the world since the end of the Cold War (ibid., 1), which illustrate the

importance of including these types of regimes in the study. The variation of the independent

variables, summarized in the table below, allows for a comparison of which combination gives

the most favourable conditions for the substantive representation of women.

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Table 1: Variation of independent variables

Democracy Electoral Autocracy High DRW (above 30 %) South Africa Zimbabwe

Low DRW (below 30 %) Botswana Zambia

The reason for focusing on COVID-19 is that the pandemic is unique in comparison to other health crisis because of its effect on most other policy areas. As mentioned in the introduction, COVID-19 is a highly relevant phenomenon with clear gendered effects which have not yet been addressed by researchers. In addition, health is a prioritized policy area for both female citizens and female political representatives (Clayton and Zetterberg 2018, 920; Clayton et al.

2019, 81f). This makes it an interesting policy area to focus on when studying SRW in the context of crises.

Moreover, COVID-19 can be argued to be of interest in relation to regime type. The pandemic has raised attention to how the affected nations responded. Alon and Li (2020) argue that people around the world, particularly in Western democracies, initially accused the authoritarian government of China for censoring information regarding the disease. When China declared that their strategy of closing cities managed to hinder the spread of the disease, the minds of people in democracies began to shift (Alon and Li 2020, 152). Since then, multiple media articles have posed questions on whether democracy is the most suitable political system for handling crises such as COVID-19 (Brands 2020; Ilyushina 2020; Maçães 2020). Besides, some regimes have taken advantage of the crisis and restricted the space for civil society and social movements to act (Bethke and Wolff 2020), which directly affect women rights advocates and organizations by making it more difficult for them to forward their demands.

This makes a comparison between democracies and electoral autocracies, especially when it comes to addressing COVID-19 related issues, even more puzzling.

Another feature of focusing on COVID-19 is the interests of women rights advocates for

pushing governments to include the gendered aspects of the pandemic in their strategies and

responses. The pan-African women organization network FEMNET, which include women

organizations from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia, has encouraged

policymakers and political leaders to include the interests of women in the COVID-19

strategies and responses. Because they, together with international and local women

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organizations, have advocated for governments to apply a gender lens to the COVID-19 response, the gendered effects of the pandemic can be argued to be of particular interest for women. Proven by previous epidemics such as Ebola and Zika, ignoring gender inequalities in crisis responses tend to worsen them (Smith 2020, 1f), which makes it especially important for political representatives to recognize the gendered consequences of the pandemic and introduce these issues to the parliamentary agenda.

3.2 Material

Using text as data is a growing trend within political science, and scholars have increased their use of Hansards in particular to measure the debate behaviour of MPs (e.g., Clayton, Josefsson and Wang 2017). This study is in line with that approach, using the content of parliamentary debates as an indicator of the substantive representation of women in a non-Western regional context. To explore whether the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are addressed in the national assemblies, Hansards from each of the countries during the first critical months of the COVID-19 pandemic will be examined.

Hansards are originally from the United Kingdom and as the selected countries for this study are former British colonies, they all use the Hansard-system. Hansards refer to a report of what is being said in plenary sessions. The MPs words are recorded, transcribed and then edited to delete repetitions and mistakes, without removing the meaning of what is being discussed. Hansards also include decisions being made during a sitting and how MPs vote to reach these decisions (UK parliament n.d.). This material has the advantage of allowing us to analyse both to what extent and how the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are addressed by examining directly how the parliamentarians discuss the issues of interests.

Hansards are available for download on the websites of the four selected parliaments.

The period selected for the study is the 15 of March to the 31 of August 2020. Even though reports on the COVID-19 cases came as early as in January, and Africa had its first reported case in Egypt on the 14th of February (WHO 2020), the 15th of March is at the centre of the beginning of the outbreak in our region of interest

3

. The selected period stretches until the end of August, mainly because the available Hansards online when the collection of material started were restricted to the end of August. Besides, the most critical time of the COVID-19 outbreak so far in the Southern African region was between June and August 2020.

3 First case in South Africa 5th of March (Wiysonge 2020), Zimbabwe 21st of March (Dzinamarira et al. 2020),

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The number of parliamentary debates within the selected time period differs between the countries in focus. Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe have had around 20 parliamentary debates, whereas South Africa has had seven. This difference may pose a challenge to the validity of the study as MPs in some of the countries will have more possibilities to raise issues of concern to women. However, the South African debates are in general more extensive in length than the Hansards from the other countries. Moreover, the study will examine the

proportion of the debates concerned with the gendered effects of the pandemic, which means

that the attention to the issues of interests will be set in relation to the total number of pages of Hansards from each country.

Another potential limitation of using Hansards is that certain meanings can be lost in transcription or translation. Because the Hansards are written by other actors, the researcher has no control over what has been left out or changed. Some parts of the debates might also have been conducted in local languages and translated into English, which can be a potential limitation as underlying meanings or nuances may be different in different languages and contexts. Yet, Hansards are the most suitable available material to reach an understanding of how political issues are talked about in the parliaments.

3.3 Methods

This section will describe the deductive reasoning with an inductive element underpinning this study. It will also describe the quantitative and qualitative methods used to answer the two parts of the research question, along with discussing the advantages and disadvantages of these methods.

As mentioned in the introduction, a deductive logic of inquiry is underpinning the way of viewing the relationship between theory, data and method in this study. The first part of the research question, i.e., to what extent the gendered effects of the pandemic are addressed in the parliaments, will be answered deductively throughout the study. This implies testing specific hypotheses with the assistance of clear methodological steps (Teorell and Svensson 2007, 49).

While this task was rather straightforward when it came to expectations about the

quantitative part of the study, it became more difficult in the second part of the research

question concerned with the framing of the issues addressed. Although expectations of a

difference in framing between the cases could be formulated as a hypothesis, existing theories

have not proposed any suggestion on how the MPs use specific frames when it comes to gender

and COVID-19 or other types of societal crises. If the study had been concerned with other

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health issues, such as sexual and reproductive rights, a deductive approach would have been more applicable throughout the second part of the study, because more empirical studies have been conducted around these issues and the way of framing them (e.g., Coe 2011; Jaworski 2009). Therefore, the second part of the study will be deductive in terms of having certain expectations on the difference in framing between the cases and in the categorization of represented solutions as targeting either strategic or practical gender needs, but not on the specific frames used by the MPs in problematizing the gendered effects of the pandemic.

Instead, frames will be developed inductively.

Another reason for incorporating an inductive element in the frame analysis is that studying discourses and meaning making processes require social constructivist thinking. The idea of discourse is based on an assumption that policy problems are socially constructed and that competing interpretations exist of what problems and solutions are (Bacchi 1999).

Induction fits with this approach as it is concerned with the process of meaning-making in the specific context studied. It can be seen as a process of collecting new data and using it to strengthen or problematize existing theories (Timmermans and Tavory 2014, 5).

Against this background, the study will apply two methods, examining the extent of attention to the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the framing of these issues respectively. Similarly, studies of Western democracies have analysed the role of gender by looking at frequency and content in plenary debates (e.g., Bäck, Debus and Müller 2014;

Pearson and Dancey 2011). Although general attention to women’s interests within plenary debates tend to be small, previous work has found women parliamentarians to be more likely than their male colleagues to address issues of concern to women in plenary debates (Clayton, Josefsson and Wang 2017, 280). However, this is the first study to analyse the articulation of women’s interests in legislative speech in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.

3.3.1 Quantitative text analysis

For the first part of the research question, a quantitative text analysis will be used as a method.

More specifically, descriptive statistics on the proportion of the Hansards discussing issues of

interests will be presented and analysed. The aim of using this method is to explore the

proportion of the debates discussing COVID-19 in general, as well as to examine the extent to

which the gendered effects of the pandemic are discussed within the COVID-19 debate in

particular. This will be done by calculating the number of words, i.e., the units of analysis,

dedicated to each topic. This method is suitable for capturing a general picture of how much

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the gendered effects of the pandemic are discussed in each parliament and allows for a clear comparison between the cases. Moreover, it is a suitable method as it allows for an analysis of a large text-material, which is especially useful for this study as the Hansards in total included approximately 2500 pages.

Furthermore, quantitative text analysis is suitable when we are interested in the occurrence of different types of categories of content in the material. This study is especially interested in the space the category of gendered effects receives, i.e., how many words which are devoted to discussing the gendered effects of the pandemic. How much space a topic obtains in a country’s parliamentary debates indicates something important about the degree of prioritization of an issue (Esaiasson 2017, 198). However, this process is not only concerned with mechanical calculating. Rather, the content categories must first be interpreted to be counted (ibid., 199). The categories of interest, i.e., the COVID-19 and the gendered effects of the pandemic, had to be defined to assign the relevant text sections into these categories. Words were categorized into the COVID-19 category when they were components of a discussion explicitly mentioning COVID-19 or its consequences. Words within the COVID-19 category which were interpreted as components of a discussion talking about the effects of the pandemic on women or girls were categorized into the gendered effects category. In this case, MPs had to explicitly mention the effects of COVID-19 on women, girls or gender equality, to be included in the category.

The Nvivo program is well suited for this kind of research approach by allowing for a variety of options in coding and possibilities to find relations between coding categories. By searching for keywords of COVID-19, COVID, coronavirus, corona, and pandemic, the relevant text-elements explicitly addressing the COVID-19 pandemic could be categorized. To assess which part of the data covering the gendered effects of the pandemic, the keywords

women, gender, girls and gender equality were combined with the keywords of COVID-19 to

identify the relevant passages of gender and COVID-19 in the texts. The use of keywords has the advantage of making the coding process easier and make sure sections are not overlooked.

However, a potential disadvantage is that the selection of keywords has implications on which text-sections being identified. For example, by not including certain keywords, such as men,

boys or gender inequality, relevant sections discussing the gendered effects of COVID-19 are

at risk of being overlooked. To avoid this, all of the text material was read through.

Verloo and Lombardo stress the importance to include an analysis of who has a voice to

address gender equality issues in the political arena (Verloo and Lombardo 2007, 21). The right

to a voice in the discussion about a policy issue is fundamentally connected to power and to

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the inclusion or exclusion of actors in the political debate. Debates under the condition of inequality usually serve the interests of the dominant groups and exclude subordinated groups from articulating their interests (ibid., 27). Even though the actors addressing the gendered effects of the pandemic are not central for the research question in this study, it can serve as a confirmation of how active women MPs are compared to their male counterparts in parliaments with a variety of numbers of women in parliament. Therefore, the MPs addressing COVID-19 were coded based on their sex to assess who had a voice in these debates. This was done by examining the titles (Mr/Mrs/Ms) written before the names of the MPs in the Hansards.

Despite the many advantages of using a quantitative text analysis to examine the extent to which each of the parliaments address the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, descriptive statistics are less useful for understanding the context in which these issues are articulated or how issues are discussed. To overcome this limitation, the study will combine both quantitative and qualitative text analysis.

3.3.2 Frame analysis

Celis (2009) argues that measuring SRW should not solely focus on quantitative evaluations.

Qualitative dimensions should be taken into consideration, such as the diversity of women’s issues being represented (Celis 2009, 96). Therefore, frame analysis will be applied to the text- elements within the gendered effects category.

The idea of framing derives from a social-constructivist way of viewing the world, which implies phenomena do not have a given meaning. They can be interpreted and represented in different ways by different actors. How problems are represented has crucial consequences for what is seen as problematic, for what is silenced, and for what people think about these issues.

Politicians are usually aware of this and frame issues strategically (Bacchi and Eveline 2010,

111). According to Kuypers, frame analysis is a suitable method for comparative analysis

because it allows for the exploration of frameworks operating in different contexts or across

different issues, which fits the aim of this study (Kuypers 2009, 185). Additionally, it is a

suitable method when parts of the material are more important than others, when the researcher

is looking for a context-based understanding of the material, and when actors are important for

the analysis (Esaiasson 2017, 211). In this study, the content of the framing and the potential

difference in framing between parliaments rather than the actors framing issues are at the center

of analysis.

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Furthermore, frame analysis is concerned with the correspondence between the diagnosis of a problem and the prognosis of a problem (Verloo and Lombardo 2007, 35). In other words, the different representations political actors offer about a problem and its solution (ibid., 31).

Although the study will examine both parts of the frames, the main focus will be the diagnosis, or problematization of the framing. This is because the research question is concerned with the initial formulation of the issues and how the MPs set the gendered effects of the pandemic on the political agenda. Another reason for this delimitation is that the MPs in the examined plenary debates not commonly included explicit solutions in their framing of problems. When solutions were included in the framing, the represented problem and solution did not often correspond. While the problematization of an issue could be concerned with structures of gender inequality, the solution could be more concerned with the practical reality of women instead of changing norms and structures. Hence, the diagnosis and prognosis of the frames are separated in the analysis.

Instead of being examined inductively, the framing of solutions were analyzed based on whether they targeted strategic or practical gender needs, as described in the theory section.

This segment of the analysis is carried out to get a deeper understanding of the frames which are visible from the debates in terms of whether the MPs put forward solutions aiming at changing existing gendered structures or if they target the immediate needs of women. As with every categorization, the problem is how to classify solutions which do not fit in either of the categories. However, most represented solutions were quite clearly targeting either gender structures or women’s immediate needs. When the study came across solutions which were difficult to interpret, the solution in question was categorized as other and excluded from the analysis.

Moreover, the analysis of the diagnosis will distinguish between issue frames and micro

frames. The function of an issue frame is to pinpoint a problem, or diagnosis in a given policy

area and to provide a solution, or prognosis to the problem (Demirsu 2017, 47). Comparing the debates country by country will assist in detecting issue frames and perspectives absent in one national context, which may appear in other contexts. This is in line with Bacchi’s “what is the problem represented to be?” (1999, 36) approach, which sheds light not only on the representations of issues reaching the political agenda but also what is left unproblematized.

The issue frames have been developed by dividing the problematizations of the gendered

effects in relation to COVID-19 based on which issue of the gendered effects are being

addressed. As we will see in the analysis, the most commonly used issue frames detected in the

material are the gender-based violence (GBV) issue, the economic effects issue, and the health

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effects issue. Micro frames, on the other hand, concern how a certain issue frame is applied. In other words, the micro frames can be viewed as sub frames to the issue frames as they look more into how the problem of the issue in focus is represented by the MP. This could for example be whether they frame an issue as a problem for society or as a family problem.

Questions such as how the problem is represented and whose problem it is represented to be, will be used to categorize a micro frame.

An important aspect to address when it comes to frame analysis is how to avoid subjective interpretation of the meanings of the text, which could impact the reliability of the study. Although the researcher cannot situate her- or himself out of the interpretation and the replicability cannot be completely assured (Verloo and Lombardo 2007, 40), a possible way of minimizing this problem is to go over the material multiple times. The inductive element assists in this matter by allowing us to remain open to what the empirics tell us, without being too coloured by a certain theory of what we will find. Moreover, frame analysis might be of limited assistance for understanding why the existing frames have developed in the form in which they appear to the researcher (ibid.). Still, this study is concerned with describing how these issues are framed rather than explaining how the frames in question have emerged.

The coding has been conducted by dividing the text into rather broad categories at first, then going through the categories of interest multiple times to have the opportunity to correct any errors in the initial coding stage. One way to apply frame analysis is to ask questions about the material and examine the answers found in the texts. The questions could be asking how a certain issue is represented or what meaning it has in a certain context or by a certain actor (Esaiasson 2017, 212). All different issues brought up were divided into issue frames by asking

“what is the issue raised relating to the gendered effects within the COVID-19 debate?”, then examined in depth by looking at the problematization of the issues by each MP to divide the issue frames into micro frames by asking “what is the problem of this issue represented to be?”

and “whose problem is it seen to be?”. In the cases where explicit solutions were represented, the solutions were categorized based on whether they targeted practical or strategic gender needs, i.e., whether they challenged the structures of male domination or whether they were more concerned with assisting women within the existing structures.

3.4 Indicators

This section will explain which observable outcomes we expect to find in the material based

on the outlined hypotheses in the theory chapter.

References

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